"I will answer you, my Liege, if you will tell me in sincerity,
whether you want war or peace," replied Dunois, with a frankness
which, while it arose out of his own native openness and intrepidity
of character, made him from time to time a considerable favourite
with Louis, who, like all astucious persons, was as desirous of
looking into the hearts of others as of concealing his own.

"By my halidome," said he, "I should be as well contented as thyself,
Dunois, to tell thee my purpose, did I myself but know it exactly.
But say I declared for war, what should I do with this beautiful
and wealthy young heiress, supposing her to be in my dominions?"

"Bestow her in marriage on one of your own gallant followers, who
has a heart to love, and an arm to protect her," said Dunois.

"Upon thyself, ha!" said the King. "Pasques dieu! thou art more
politic than I took thee for, with all thy bluntness."

"Nay," answered Dunois, "I am aught except politic. By our Lady
of Orleans, I come to the point at once, as I ride my horse at the
ring. Your Majesty owes the house of Orleans at least one happy
marriage."

"And I will pay it, Count. Pasques dieu, I will pay it! -- See you
not yonder fair couple?"

The King pointed to the unhappy Duke of Orleans and the Princess,
who, neither daring to remain at a greater distance from the King,
nor in his sight appear separate from each other, were riding side
by side, yet with an interval of two or three yards betwixt them,
a space which timidity on the one side, and aversion on the other,
prevented them from diminishing, while neither dared to increase
it.

Dunois looked in the direction of the King's signal, and as
the situation of his unfortunate relative and the destined bride
reminded him of nothing so much as of two dogs, which, forcibly
linked together, remain nevertheless as widely separated as the
length of their collars will permit, he could not help shaking his
head, though he ventured not on any other reply to the hypocritical
tyrant. Louis seemed to guess his thoughts.

"It will be a peaceful and quiet household they will keep -- not
much disturbed with children, I should augur. But these are not
always a blessing."

[Here the King touches on the very purpose for which he pressed
on the match with such tyrannic severity, which was that as the
Princess's personal deformity admitted little chance of its being
fruitful, the branch of Orleans, which was next in succession to
the crown, might be, by the want of heirs, weakened or extinguished]

It was, perhaps, the recollection of his own filial ingratitude
that made the King pause as he uttered the last reflection, and
which converted the sneer that trembled on his lip into something
resembling an expression of contrition. But he instantly proceeded
in another tone.

"Frankly, my Dunois, much as I revere the holy sacrament of matrimony"
(here he crossed himself), "I would rather the house of Orleans
raised for me such gallant soldiers as thy father and thyself, who
share the blood royal of France without claiming its rights, than
that the country should be torn to pieces, like to England, by wars
arising from the rivalry of legitimate candidates for the crown.
The lion should never have more than one cub."

Dunois sighed and was silent, conscious that contradicting his
arbitrary Sovereign might well hurt his kinsman's interests but
could do him no service; yet he could not forbear adding, in the
next moment,

"Since your Majesty has alluded to the birth of my father, I must
needs own that, setting the frailty of his parents on one side, he
might be termed happier, and more fortunate, as the son of lawless
love than of conjugal hatred."

"Thou art a scandalous fellow, Dunois, to speak thus of holy wedlock,"
answered Louis jestingly. "But to the devil with the discourse,
for the boar is unharboured. -- Lay on the dogs, in the name of the
holy Saint Hubert! -- Ha! ha! tra-la-la-lira-la" -- And the King's
horn rang merrily through the woods as he pushed forward on the
chase, followed by two or three of his guards, amongst whom was
our friend Quentin Durward. And here it was remarkable that, even
in the keen prosecution of his favourite sport, the King in indulgence
of his caustic disposition, found leisure to amuse himself by
tormenting Cardinal Balue.

It was one of that able statesman's weaknesses, as we have elsewhere
hinted, to suppose himself, though of low rank and limited education,
qualified to play the courtier and the man of gallantry. He did
not, indeed, actually enter the lists of chivalrous combat, like
Becket, or levy soldiers, like Wolsey. But gallantry, in which they
also were proficients, was his professed pursuit; and he likewise
affected great fondness for the martial amusement of the chase.
Yet, however well he might succeed with certain ladies, to whom
his power, his wealth, and his influence as a statesman might atone
for deficiencies in appearance and manners, the gallant horses,
which he purchased at almost any price, were totally insensible
to the dignity of carrying a Cardinal, and paid no more respect to
him than they would have done to his father, the carter, miller,
or tailor, whom he rivalled in horsemanship. The King knew this,
and, by alternately exciting and checking his own horse, he brought
that of the Cardinal, whom he kept close by his side, into such
a state of mutiny against his rider, that it became apparent they
must soon part company; and then, in the midst of its starting,
bolting, rearing, and lashing out, alternately, the royal tormentor
rendered the rider miserable, by questioning him upon many affairs
of importance, and hinting his purpose to take that opportunity
of communicating to him some of those secrets of state which the
Cardinal had but a little while before seemed so anxious to learn.

[In imputing to the Cardinal a want of skill in horsemanship, I
recollected his adventure in Paris when attacked by assassins, on
which occasion his mule, being scared by the crowd, ran away with
the rider, and taking its course to a monastery, to the abbot of
which he formerly belonged; was the means of saving his master's
life. . . . S.]

A more awkward situation could hardly be imagined than that of a
privy councillor forced to listen to and reply to his sovereign,
while each fresh gambade of his unmanageable horse placed him in
a new and more precarious attitude -- his violet robe flying loose
in every direction, and nothing securing him from an instant and
perilous fall save the depth of the saddle, and its height before
and behind. Dunois laughed without restraint; while the King, who
had a private mode of enjoying his jest inwardly, without laughing
aloud, mildly rebuked his minister on his eager passion for the
chase, which would not permit him to dedicate a few moments to
business.

"I will no longer be your hindrance to a course," continued he,
addressing the terrified Cardinal, and giving his own horse the
rein at the same time.

Before Balue could utter a word by way of answer or apology, his
horse, seizing the bit with his teeth, went forth at an uncontrollable
gallop, soon leaving behind the King and Dunois, who followed at a
more regulated pace, enjoying the statesman's distressed predicament.
If any of our readers has chanced to be run away with in his time
(as we ourselves have in ours), he will have a full sense at once
of the pain, peril, and absurdity of the situation. Those four
limbs of the quadruped, which, noway under the rider's control,
nor sometimes under that of the creature they more properly belong
to, fly at such a rate as if the hindermost meant to overtake the
foremost; those clinging legs of the biped which we so often wish
safely planted on the greensward, but which now only augment our
distress by pressing the animal's sides -- the hands which have
forsaken the bridle for the mane -- the body, which, instead of
sitting upright on the centre of gravity, as old Angelo [a celebrated
riding and fencing master at the beginning of the nineteenth
century] used to recommend, or stooping forward like a jockey's at
Newmarket [the scene of the annual horse races has been at Newmarket
Heath since the time of James I], lies, rather than hangs, crouched
upon the back of the animal, with no better chance of saving
itself than a sack of corn -- combine to make a picture more than
sufficiently ludicrous to spectators, however uncomfortable to the
exhibiter. But add to this some singularity of dress or appearance
on the part of the unhappy cavalier -- a robe of office, a splendid
uniform, or any other peculiarity of costume -- and let the scene
of action be a race course, a review, a procession, or any other
place of concourse and public display, and if the poor wight would
escape being the object of a shout of inextinguishable laughter,
he must contrive to break a limb or two, or, which will be more
effectual, to be killed on the spot; for on no slighter condition
will his fall excite anything like serious sympathy. On the present
occasion, the short violet coloured gown of the Cardinal, which he
used as riding dress (having changed his long robes before he left
the Castle), his scarlet stockings, and scarlet hat, with the long
strings hanging down, together with his utter helplessness, gave
infinite zest to his exhibition of horsemanship.

The horse, having taken matters entirely into his own hand, flew
rather than galloped up a long green avenue; overtook the pack in
hard pursuit of the boar, and then, having overturned one or two
yeomen prickers, who little expected to be charged in the rear --
having ridden down several dogs, and greatly confused the chase
-- animated by the clamorous expostulations and threats of the
huntsman, carried the terrified Cardinal past the formidable animal
itself, which was rushing on at a speedy trot, furious and embossed
with the foam which he churned around his tusks. Balue, on beholding
himself so near the boar, set up a dreadful cry for help, which,
or perhaps the sight of the boar, produced such an effect on his
horse, that the animal interrupted its headlong career by suddenly
springing to one side; so that the Cardinal, who had long kept his
seat only because the motion was straight forward, now fell heavily
to the ground. The conclusion of Balue's chase took place so near
the boar that, had not the animal been at that moment too much
engaged about his own affairs, the vicinity might have proved as
fatal to the Cardinal, as it is said to have done to Favila, King
of the Visigoths of Spain [he was killed by a bear while hunting].
The powerful churchman got off, however, for the fright, and, crawling
as hastily as he could out of the way of hounds and huntsmen, saw
the whole chase sweep by him without affording him assistance, for
hunters in those days were as little moved by sympathy for such
misfortunes as they are in our own. The King, as he passed, said
to Dunois, "Yonder lies his Eminence low enough -- he is no great
huntsman, though for a fisher (when a secret is to be caught) he
may match Saint Peter himself. He has, however, for once, I think,
met with his match."

The Cardinal did not hear the words, but the scornful look with
which they were spoken led him to suspect their general import. The
devil is said to seize such opportunities of temptation as were now
afforded by the passions of Balue, bitterly moved as they had been
by the scorn of the King. The momentary fright was over so soon as
he had assured himself that his fall was harmless; but mortified
vanity, and resentment against his Sovereign, had a much longer
influence on his feelings. After all the chase had passed him, a
single cavalier, who seemed rather to be a spectator than a partaker
of the sport, rode up with one or two attendants, and expressed
no small surprise to find the Cardinal upon the ground, without
a horse or attendants, and in such a plight as plainly showed the
nature of the accident which had placed him there. To dismount,
and offer his assistance in this predicament -- to cause one of his
attendants to resign a staid and quiet palfrey for the Cardinal's
use -- to express his surprise at the customs of the French Court,
which thus permitted them to abandon to the dangers of the chase,
and forsake in his need, their wisest statesman, were the natural
modes of assistance and consolation which so strange a rencontre
supplied to Crevecoeur, for it was the Burgundian ambassador who
came to the assistance of the fallen Cardinal.

He found the minister in a lucky time and humour for essaying some
of those practices on his fidelity, to which it is well known that
Balue had the criminal weakness to listen. Already in the morning,
as the jealous temper of Louis had suggested, more had passed
betwixt them than the Cardinal durst have reported to his master.
But although he had listened with gratified ears to the high value,
which, he was assured by Crevecoeur, the Duke of Burgundy placed
upon his person and talents, and not without a feeling of temptation,
when the Count hinted at the munificence of his master's disposition,
and the rich benefices of Flanders, it was not until the accident,
as we have related, had highly irritated him that, stung with
wounded vanity, he resolved, in a fatal hour, to show Louis XI that
no enemy can be so dangerous as an offended friend and confidant.
On the present occasions he hastily requested Crevecoeur to separate
from him lest they should be observed, but appointed him a meeting
for the evening in the Abbey of Saint Martin's at Tours, after vesper
service; and that in a tone which assured the Burgundian that his
master had obtained an advantage hardly to have been hoped for
except in such a moment of exasperation. In the meanwhile, Louis,
who, though the most politic Prince of his time, upon this, as on
other occasions, had suffered his passions to interfere with his
prudence, followed contentedly the chase of the wild boar, which
was now come to an interesting point. It had so happened that a
sounder (i.e., in the language of the period, a boar of only two
years old), had crossed the track of the proper object of the chase,
and withdrawn in pursuit of him all the dogs (except two or three
couples of old stanch hounds) and the greater part of the huntsmen.
The King saw, with internal glee, Dunois, as well as others,
follow upon this false scent, and enjoyed in secret the thought
of triumphing over that accomplished knight in the art of venerie,
which was then thought almost as glorious as war. Louis was well
mounted, and followed, close on the hounds; so that, when the
original boar turned to bay in a marshy piece of ground, there was
no